A first and one time only edition of the mid-week News Roundup means the Weekly News Roundup is a little light this week. Nonetheless there's still enough news to make up a nice little edition of the roundup, thanks mostly to Madden NFL 08 making headlines in the latter part of the week. Of course, since Madden is in the news that can only mean the message board users have also been in a little bit of a frenzy -- why not join in? So read on after the jump to hear all about the new and upcoming Madden NFL 08 updates, as well as news about EA's NASCAR series, March Madness 08, WWE Smackdown vs. Raw 2008, and College Hoops 2K8.

Madden 08 made the news in a big way because a new next-gen patch is incoming in the next few weeks, and a new October roster update is now up live for PS3 and XBOX 360 users to download.

The new roster update was already covered on DSM in a news story, so read about all the changes right here, and then as always come to the message boards (this thread in particular) for the errors and downers, because as always the lovable boards are a breeding ground for negativity.

The aforementioned patch is a big deal for all Madden gamers because there are some nasty bugs and glitches in the game, and obviously gamers don't like broken pieces of games. So everyone was eager to read the latest Madden NFL 08 producer blog that was posted because it dealt with what issues the patch would fix -- or wouldn't fix.

According to EA, here are the official fixes that are going to be included in the patch.

Fumble Fix - Reduced fumble chances in certain situations.  This has been tested thoroughly and we feel that  people will be happy with a more realistic (and more fun!) number of fumbles. This was priority number 1 for us.

DB Reactions- changes to the way that DBs play man coverage. Defenders in man coverage won't be able to react to passes that they cannot see. This should make it easier to throw against man coverage.

Favre "Moonwalk"- I love the names that you guys come up with for issues such as this one.  You can rest assured that you won't see Farve (or any QB) dancing toward the sideline anymore.

Hook  Zone Flip Bug- I saw a post on a community forum talking about this bug and it turns out the fix was very minimal risk.  You can now flip plays with hook zones without the players leaving their zones.

Franchise - Fixed NCAA import issue where players would turn 26

Franchise - Fixed bug where HOF Unlocked players cannot be released in Franchise.

Can you decipher which glitch still isn't fixed? If you guessed the vanishing free agents in franchise mode then you are correct!

The lack of a fix for this bug is a blow to any Madden franchise player. At some point during a franchise, whether it is year 3, year 5 or so on, the disappearing free agents will cause the Franchise Freeze. And when the Freeze happens gamers can kiss their franchises goodbye -- spiking hours after hours of Madden franchise gaming deep into the muddy ground. 

That said the gameplay fixes in this patch should be great for the on-field Madden experience, and thus should appease a large part of the Madden community.

A final piece of Madden news actually comes in the form of a request. Tiburon (the studio that develops the Madden series) wants to know if the QB vision passing is worth keeping in future Madden games as an optional gameplay mechanic, or should be removed completely so new gameplay mechanics can be mapped to the right stick. Head here to vote (the poll is in the bottom right corner) and then head to DSM's boards to give a more full response since Tiburon wants to know why the vision passing should stay or go.

Moving from one EA product to the next; EA's NASCAR 07 had a somewhat rough year in terms of review scores, and perhaps the average review scores have a small part to do with why EA is opening up a new NASCAR studio in North Carolina. The more obvious reason for the move to NC probably has to do with NC arguably being "the home" of real-life NASCAR.

Fresh talent will be welcomed at the new studio, and some existing talent from Tiburon will be brought in as well. The new studio will only work on the PS2 version of NASCAR 09 -- the next-gen versions of the NASCAR series won't be handled by the studio until the post-09 versions.

One final EA product that made news this week was March Madness 08. 1UP's Todd Zuniga posted his preview for the upcoming NCAA college hoops game, and while there isn't much new information in it if you've been reading other previews the final few paragraphs are still worth reading. In those final paragraphs Zuniga points out that the players still don't have enough explosion on first steps (a big problem in NBA Live this year) and also talks about how great the game looks.

While on the topic of fresh NCAA college hoops previews -- IGN's Jeff Haynes has posted a preview for College Hoops 2K8. If you haven't read much about the game to this point then this preview will serve as a nice primer since Haynes hits on most of the big new features.

Lastly there's a new video preview up at GameTrailers for WWE Smackdown vs. Raw 2008. In the preview the GT talking head shows/talks about the new gameplay elements that will be present in this year's version of Smackdown. Once again check it out if you haven't been reading up on your Smackdown 08 information.

Until next time, that's it for the Weekly News Roundup.